Brothers
by coli narago
Summary: Leo and Raph have a major falling out and Raphael leaves home. He has only one this left to do with Leonardo - his oath to kill him. Chapter 6 is up.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I don't really know how long it take for a cargo ship to get from NY to France, so I guessed four days. Just bear with me, here.

Leonardo threw open the sliding door before crashing into his new bedroom and slamming the doors shut behind him. All as he did this, he thought about his most recent fight with Raphael, when he was still steaming over. Of course, just like the last few weeks, Raph had stormed out promising never to come back, never to return and never to see any of their family ever again. This happened several times a week now.

These fights had been getting out of hand. Ever since Master Splinter had passed away eight months ago, and the family had begun to fall apart. For the first month, they were held together solidly by their sorrow, and for a couple of months after that by Donatello's peacekeeping skills and Michelangelo's humor. The fourth month rolled around and Mikey's humor wasn't enough to make anyone but Don laugh anymore. The geeky, mellow turtle was able to keep his brothers together for about two more months until the beginning of July when Leo and Raph had their first fist fight over something as small as dinner. Weeks passed and it moved into weapons. Finally, today, was the biggest topic yet.

Leo had decided to follow old Japanese tradition and, as the 'oldest' and best fighter, moved all of his things into his father's room, where he can be known as the hokage the clan, the leader, the master. His brothers would have to call him Master of corse, but it's not like he would have treated them any different. I meant, they're still hid brothers, the men had had grown up with from boys, from infants, got out of -and into- everything together. They were still the people he loved and nothing would ever even slightly alter the way he treated them.

But, of corse Raphael didn't understand his reasoning.

He'd refused to ever call Leonardo 'Master' if his life depended on it. He had left the lair, claiming to never, ever come back.

Raph's POV

The docks were dark and there were crates and crates of merchandise in Manhattan's largest cargo port. Raphael had sworn never to return the sewers many times over the past weeks, but this time had gone overboard. He refused to call his brother 'Master', no matter what the ancient Japanese scrolls and traditions said. He was pushed around enough. Raph had one master, and his name was Splinter. There were no others.

So, this time, he would follow threw with his promise.

The cargo ship was headed for France, and better have enough room for a mutant turtle aboard.

Don's POV

As the months had gone by and Leo and Raph had split apart, gradually tearing them from us, as well, it was only natural for my other brother and I to be together like never before. Mike got me to do things I never thought I would, and likewise for him. So, right now, we were in the kitchen playing game of scrabble.

I know, right? Scrabble? Why would Mike play that? It's a word game, and he does anything but study vocabulary. But that's just my point. He's doing things he never would, just to spend more time with me. But, I've been doing the same. I actually played Halo this morning, and guitar hero before that. Of course, the only hobby I won't share with my baby brother is working in the lab. That's the one thing he refuses to do – and besides, he'd probably blow the whole lair to bits. No, instead, he sits at my computer and plays his little games. There is only about a few hours total during the day when we're not together.

This time, I agreed with Raph. I wouldn't call Leo 'Master' if my life depended on it. But I was afraid to say so. For once, I has afraid of my older brother.

Leo had stripped Raph of his honor.


	2. the weak week

A/N: Hey, guys! I'm super excited to finally put out this chapter. I wrote it a while ago, just didn't have the chance to post. Thanks to all of my readers, especially to those who reviewed, I love you all. So, I changed the time it takes for a ship to reach France to two weeks, instead of four days. Like I was saying, it was a guess anyway. And two weeks works better for the story in coming chapters. So, on with the story!

Raph's POV

The damn boat had been on the open waters for four days. I should have checked the time for how long it would take before I boarded. I might have jacked a plane instead.

The same things kept running through my head, even though I had already thought about them for three straight days.

The first thing was how I was getting off the ship. I would just run like hell when I saw n no one looking and swim to shore.

The second was what I would do when I arrived. I'd just go to the sewers and make my own lair.

Third haunted me. It wouldn't leave me alone no mater how hard I tried. Did Leo miss me?

Leo's POV

Four days had passed since Raph had left. For the first two days, I had ben too steamed up to even want his home. I wished him dead. Yesterday, I realized that I didn't want him to be gone forever, even if wasn't ready to forgive him. Today I wondered what was taking so long, though I wasn't concerned in the least.

To quench my curiosity, I called up Casey and his wife April.

"Hey, Case."

"So, Leo! I haven't heard from you in a while."

"Huh. What? Haven't you figured out why yet?"

"Um... Should I have?"

"Funny. Why else would you have a visitor for a week?"

"Did you and Raph have another fight?"

"So... he's not there?" I didn't feel any in my heart, but my voice began to tilt upward with concern.

"No. A week did you say?"

"Don't worry about it. He always comes back."

And I hung up.

Where was my Brother?

Mike's POV

Donny and I had been searching for Raph for the last three days. It was quite obvious that he had gone for good this time, but it didn't stop us from looking.

Leo had been going through life normally for the last week, like nothing had happened, except for the lack of arguing. But, this morning, he almost entirely cut himself off from us, it seemed as though he was wallowing in, dare I say it? Guilt?


	3. searching

A/N: Hey, guys! I wrote this before I even posted the last one. I was a t school and they blocked fanfiction (bull shit, right?)!

Anyway, this one is pretty much Leo angst.

SO, on with the story!

**Must read: Raphael had stayed in a warehouse for a night before getting on the ship to France.**

**This is mostly Leo angst.**

Leo's POV

_He's gone. _

I jumped from one gray, dreary building to the next, searching through all of the windows.

_I made him leave._

He wasn't there.

_I took away his honor._

I turned into the warehouse district. Perhaps he would be there, hiding out.

_I have fought him._

I was sure he was somewhere in the city.

_I have wounded, yelled at and ridiculed him._

Of course, it had been a whole week. He could be in China by now.

_All he ever wanted was a little freedom._

No, he was in the city. He had to be. Otherwise I would never find him.

_For me not to control every aspect of his life._

Warehouses one through 23 were empty, so I turned to the next row of them.

_To not have to tell me just one little thing._

There was a movement in warehouse 83, and I moved in a broken window.

_To go to the park, his friend's house, the movies with out me knowing everything about it._

It was a rat eating some scraps of pizza crust.

_I knew what movie he watched, where he went, who he met and what he said to them._

There were footprints in the dust on the floor of the cement room.

_He was in a cage._

Turtle footprints.

_I cage I had set up around him._

Week old turtle footprints.

_I had told him to call me Master._

He had been here, but left. He'd been here only a night.

_I had ordered him to call me Master._

I jumped back through the window and followed his prints for a few feet.

_All he'd wanted was a life, and not to be a puppet on a string._

But I reached a dead end.

_A puppet on my string._

I didn't see anymore. They had ended. So I went in the same general direction.

_My puppet on my string._

I searched for hours before returning home.

_He was my brother._

Tomorrow I would look for twice as long. I would have to cut out a bit of training, but I'd do it.

_He's gone._


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I have another chapter for you! Thank you readers and reviewers!

Raph's POV

Arriving on the dock in France was a noisy thing to do. And I tell ya one thing, I ain't ever doin' it again. The boat rocked and there was a hell of a lot of noise as people began unloading the crates. I slipped out and over the side of the deck.

As I heaved myself up onto the dock, hidden by crates, I head a woman's voice behind me.

"Raphael!"

Mike's POV

Don and I had given up searching for Raphael. It had been weeks, and we'd decided that he'd gone for good. Leo had been acting normal, as if he really didn't care. This morning, though, I woke up to the sound the telephone slamming shut and footstep – quiet ninja footsteps that only a ninja can hear – running. The the door to the lair opening and slamming shut.

Leo was in a hurry somewhere.

I quickly ditched my room and turned my head down the hall to the right. My geeky brother had heard it as well and was emerging from his room.

Don's POV

"Where is he going?" My baby brother inquired as soon as I poked my head out of my bedroom.

"I have no idea, Mike."

"I hope he's not leaving us, too." Michelangelo sounded quite scared at that prospect and we both turned to look at the door. About thirty feet in front of it, I noticed that there was a shell cell on the floor. It was Leo's shell cell.

Mikey and I moved down to the ground floor and checked the coaller ID. He'd just called Casey.

"Should we call him?" I asked.

"You do it."

"Why?"

"I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"I don't think I want to know what he said."

the ominous phrase 'I don't want to know what he said' resonated around the circular lair. I didn't want to know either.


	5. forgotten

A/N: Sorry it's been so long, guys. I've been studying like a madwoman for finals, and I'm stil trying to get a grip on freshman high school year. Yuck. Anyhoo, I wrote this awhile back, and I'm only just now getting around to typing it up. SO, here goes nothing!

Leonardo's POV

_(Italics are thoughts)_

**Five months later**

_Find him. Find him. Find him. _The voices floated around in my head like an annoyingly broken CD stuck in replay. I was beginning to lose my mind. _He's your brother. You stripped him of his honor, his family, his brother. _I recognized that voice, but who's was it?

I was jumping from rooftop to rooftop to find any little clue about where Raphie could be. _He's gone. _The voice said. _He hates you. He wants to kill you._

"**NO!"** I screamed as I fell to my knees. To anyone else it would look as though I was screaming to thin air, but I knew better. I knew who I was screaming at. It was Raphie. "Why do you hate me, Raphie? I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" I wept sprawled across the rooftop, until long awaited sleep took me.

Michelangelo's POV

I missed the old Leo. He was going insane, he really was. He pushed to look for Raphael. Of course, the train freak was able to shove his way through the restraining arms of the baby and the geek, he was so much stronger. Leonardo was an animal.

Leo didn't eat anymore, he didn't sleep. Nor did he even train. I remembered a few years back, when we had been worried about him. It was because of him insistent training, something that continued all the way up until the time when Master Splinter died. But, as soon as he was the head of the clan, he calmed down, thought about it and realized he had to put first things first. So the training dropped to a reasonable level.

But it picked back up again when Raph left. He began to train relentlessly again, but it stopped about a week later and the search for our missing brother had begun – and Leo's slow descent into insanity. He even called Raphael 'Raphie' now, like when we were little, before anyone began to fight. When we were still inseparable brothers. Before our interests took us our own ways.

"I'll go find him this time." My purple-clad brother yawned as he walked out of the lab and it was obvious she meant he'd go bring home a Leonardo that had probably fallen asleep in a ditch somewhere dew to pure exhaustion and lack of nutrition. Donny always had to give him some sort of nutritional drip when he was out cold, because he never ate anymore.

Donatello's POV

I trudged out into the pouring rain to where I saw my poor, insane brother slumped on the rooftop. Kneeling down, I grabbed his shoulders and turned him around, ready to throw him over my shoulder, ready to carry him home. But I caught site of his face. It was normal. It was like it was back when Raph was still here, when he was exhausted and fell to sleep on the couch in the living room. He was only ever that exhausted after lecturing Raphael for a while, but things always cooled down. Raph was always the one to finally realize that their last argument had been over nothing, and finally retreated to the living room couch to cover Leo with a blanket.

All of these thoughts came to my head in a flash and all I could think to do was to slump onto the ground, hold my sleeping brother tight, and weep in the rain for the loss of sanity, brotherhood, both of my older brothers and my father.

Raphael's POV

I had found an old drainage junction, pretty much just like the one at home. But, you see, there is no annoying man there to judge everything I do. I've entirely forgotten that guy's name.

In my ager, I had tried relentlessly to forget about my past. My anger had done it, and I succeed in forgetting. I've forgotten how I knew him, and how long I had. His personality is gone, what he did was gone, even what he did to make me hate his so much was wiped clean from my memory. All I remember was his anger torn face, as he would scream at me, scorn me for some stupid reason that I no longer recall. All I remember is my oath to kill him, even if I took my own life in the process.

There were other men, too, though. I don't remember much about them, either, other than the fact that they may be my only allies in this world

Above all else, however, my wracking rage and years of solitude had made me an angry individual, who had no clue about teamwork, friendship, or above all love.


	6. assassin

A/N: This will be the second to last chapter in this story. I already have the last one written down in my notebook (I got bored in French class), but I haven't typed it up yet, and I needed to write this one up first. So, here we go!

Haku's POV

Three years ago, I changed my name to Haku because I couldn't bear my old one anymore. I can't remember my old name, now, t's been forgotten. I thnk I tried just a litle to hard to forgot my past life, but I don't regret doing so. Because today, today I a boarding a plane, to take a 6 hour flight to New york city. That's where I will once again meet my enemy. I will kill him, just like I swore to five years ago, when I left that place.

I squeezed myself into the little space there was left in the storage compartment on the commercial jet.

Mike's POV

Leo ran out of the room again. It was impossible to keep him anywhere, he just kept on running. He was a sickly, pasty green and very weak. He was surviving on only the nutritional drips Don was giving him and his only sleep was the medicated coma Don put him into after he caught him avery night. He wasn't Leonardo anymore.

I used to be able to go to my older brother whenever I needed something, whether it was a comforting smile, a tip on a newly learned and not-yet-master tecnique, or on a good day after dinner and training a friend to play a good video game with. But now he was no longer there, he was an empty shell looking for a lost brother.

Don's POV

Nothing was the same anymore. I compiled a list of these things while mourning one day:

Leo is a crazy man, not a train-freak over-protective older brother.

Raphael is gone, and so none of the missions are interesting anymore. Yes, you read right. Raph's hotheadedness made everything more interesting.

Mikey doesn't laugh, nor joke, nor smile at all. Games and Pranks were entirely abandoned. He'd matured, but not into the ma I hope he would, he was a serious thing, like Leo was

Master Splinter, my loving, caring father, and guiding light in the world was dead.

No one ever spoke to Casey and April anymore, since April got that new lab job and Raph left.

The lab was quiet, too quit, for me because there was no more video game noises, no more sounds of Raphael hitting the punching bag, or Master's comments while training Leonardo.

I missed my family.

So, as you can see, nothing has remained the same.

Raph's POV

I was running though the NYC sewers, trying to get to my past home, when I saw two mutant turtles, my last allies.

Mike's POV

A ninja turned the corner.


End file.
